IntroductionWith
a few exceptions, playing video games on a console has always been a
more enjoyable experience than on a home computer. In the '80s, the
simplicity of popping a game cartridge into an Atari 2600 or
Intellivision and blasting aliens on the family television set hooked
millions of Gen-Xers on technology. Personal computers soon found their
way into homes around the world and computer games soon followed, but
something just wasn’t right with them. The controllers were sub par,
often requiring the player to control the onscreen action with a
keyboard via the arrow keys. The computer speakers were all horrible,
the monitors were too small and the systems would often lock up. When I
heard that Microsoft was going to be putting out a Windows-based video
game system called the Xbox, visions of the blue error screen of death
(For all you Mac and Linux users, this is what you get when Windows
crashes) and cheesy USB video game controllers came to mind. Despite
sharing many of the same components of home computers that crash and
never quite seem to work right, I can say with 100 percent certainty
the Xbox is far and away the single best Microsoft product that I have
ever used. It works, it doesn’t crash, and amazingly, I don’t have to
give Microsoft my Social Security and credit card numbers and I don’t
have to call in to their Seattle headquarters to activate my Xbox.
Could it be a kinder, gentler division of Microsoft that released the
Xbox?

The Xbox weighs in at a hefty eight pounds, 13 ounces and is a 12-inch
wide, eight-inch deep and four-inch tall rectangular black box with a
front-loading disc tray. Much of the weight comes from the 10 gigabyte
internal hard drive that allows you to save games in progress without
having to purchase those annoying little memory cartridges that end up
getting lost and cluttering up your living room. This feature has been
long overdue on video game machines and, now that Microsoft has put one
in the Xbox, chances are slim to none that any new video game systems
will come along without an internal hard drive. You can also use
portable eight-megabyte memory cartridges by plugging them into the
slots on the top of the controllers to download stored information from
the hard drive and you can then take them to a friend’s place and
upload your stored game info to his or her Xbox.

Inside, the Xbox is very similar to a lower-end PC, with an Intel
Pentium 3 733 mHz CPU powering the machine. This may sound like a weak
system compared to today’s 2 gHz processors, but it actually the most
powerful processor ever put into a game console machine. The 300 mHz
custom-designed video X-Chip, developed by Microsoft and nVidia for the
Xbox, makes for spectacular graphics. With a maximum resolution of 1920
x 1080, the Xbox is HDTV-ready and will probably blow my mind when I
hook it up to an HD monitor someday.

Along the front edge of the Xbox, there are four controller inputs, two
on the left side numbered 1 and 2, and two on the right side, numbered
3 and 4. Of course, the Xbox only comes with one controller, so if you
want to have some head to head action with your friends or a two on two
basketball game, you’ll have to purchase more controllers at $25 to $45
a pop, depending on the model you want. In the center of the front
panel, there are two round silver buttons. The smaller button is the
power control and the larger one is the eject trigger. These are not
labeled, so you’ll need to remember that the large button with the
arrow pointing up is eject, and the small button with the round circle
on it is the on/off switch.

The
back of the unit is surprisingly sparse for such a high-tech machine.
There is an input for the power cord on the rear left corner and a 100
Mbps Ethernet port that allows you to network multiple Xbox units
together and will allow online gaming when Microsoft adds broadband
support this summer. Lastly, there is a multi-signal audio-video
connector that allows for easy hookup to a variety of televisions and
home theater systems, depending on the type of connector you opt to
use. For this review, I used the RCA audio/video cable connector that
comes standard with the Xbox. Microsoft and a host of other companies
also make S-video, component video and an RF adapters that allow you to
connect the Xbox to virtually any video monitor.

The Competition
There
are currently two other home game systems vying with the Xbox for your
expendable. Those systems are Nintendo’s Game Cube and Sony’s
Playstation 2. Are either of these systems a better choice for you than
the Xbox? There is no right or wrong answer to that question, but I’ll
help point you in the right direction. Priced at $199, the Nintendo
Game Cube is the least expensive of the three and, more than the XBox
or the PS2, is geared toward young children. With ultra-successful
franchises such as Super Mario Brothers and Zelda (to be released on
the Game Cube in the future), Nintendo offers game titles that can’t be
found on other systems and many of the titles are less violent and
intense visually than the Xbox and PS2 games. Spec-wise, the Game Cube
is slightly more powerful than the PS2, but it lacks a DVD player,
which obviously explains its lower price. The Game Cube is a
CD-ROM-based machine running a custom IBM Power PC "Gekko" processor at
485 MHz, with 42 MB of RAM. The sound for the Game Cube is generated by
a Matronix 16-bit DSP sound card at 48kHz, using Matsushita's Optical
Disc Technology on three-inch 1.5GB Nintendo Gamecube discs.

The
Playstation 2 from Sony, priced at $299, is a product more comparable
to the Xbox than to the Game Cube. This machine has garnered quite a
following in the year and a half that it has been in stores and can be
found in the Cadillac Escalades and Lincoln Navigators of virtually
every rap artist in the world. Under the hood, the PS2 is technically
the weakest of the bunch, with only a 300 MHz Sony processor, a 150 MHz
Sony GS video processor and 38 megabytes of RAM, but Sony somehow makes
this configuration jump through some big hoops. Game designers feel the
system is awkward to design for, but if you walk down the video game
aisle at Toys R’ Us, you’d never know it. There are hundreds, if not
thousands, of PS2 titles. The system has been riding on the success of
the PS1, despite its price tag and the fact that it is inferior to the
Xbox and Game Cube on paper.

Setup
Using
an open input video input on the back of my Sony STR-DE575 receiver, it
took less than a minute to connect the Xbox to the receiver, plug in
the power cord, and connect two controllers to the system It’s
literally that simple. With modern game consoles such as the Xbox,
which rely heavily for operation on internal system software, it’s a
good idea to make sure that the controllers you intend to use are
plugged in before turning on the machine to insure that the console
will "see" the controller. The Xbox controllers have a unique feature
that some people will love and others will hate. The controller cables
are tipped with nine-inch detachable connectors. The small connector
attaches the controller to the extension piece and comes apart fairly
easily. If someone walks across the room and trips over the cord, it is
intended to "break away," making it much less likely that the tripper
is going to actually fall or knock your Xbox to the floor. The downside
of this design is that if you are in a heated game of football, you
might accidentally pull the cord out of the unit. The Xbox is
programmed to automatically stop the action on screen, give you a
warning that the controller has been unplugged and will allow you to
resume playing once it has been plugged back in. I found that the
distance of the Xbox from my couch was just far enough for the
controller to occasionally pop out of the short extension piece. To
alleviate this problem, I had to move the Xbox out about three feet in
front of the television or sit on the floor in front of the couch. I am
certainly a candidate for purchasing a couple of three- or four-foot
controller extension cords.

The
controllers are a good indicator that the Xbox is not designed for
little children. Long gone are the simple days of the Atari 2600
joystick with one red button, or the small flat pad of the original
Nintendo master system with two buttons and a small control pad. The
Xbox controller is quite large, too large for children or adults with
small hands to really use comfortably. Smaller after-market controllers
are available. I felt quite comfortable using the controller, but it
does takes a little time getting adjusted to the Xbox controller after
using the substantially smaller PS2 control pads. There are a total of
12 buttons (actually 10 buttons and two triggers) and three control
pads on the Xbox controller. The standard A, B, X, and Y buttons on the
top right side of the controller are arranged in a diamond and are
color coded: A = Green, B = Red, X = blue, and Y = Yellow. Just above
these four buttons are two smaller buttons, one white and one black.
Along the bottom edge of the controller are two spring-loaded triggers.
These are operated with the left and right index fingers and are easy
to press, even while pressing other buttons and using the control pads.

Speaking of control pads, the Xbox controller has three of them. In the
upper left corner, there is a black control stick with a rounded end
that pokes up about a half an inch, swivels 360 degrees and can be
pressed down to add yet another button to the total number of ways to
interact with the games. Just to the lower right of this black pad is a
small, more traditional black disc with little indentations to allow
the user's finger to fit comfortably on it. Some games allow you to
choose either the control pad or the control stick to propel the
action. On the right side of the controller is another control stick
just like the one on the upper left side. This allows for an additional
dimension of control, but it can be confusing if you are playing a game
that requires you to use this right control stick and the buttons just
to the right of it at the same time. This game controller is going to
create a new generation of kids with very good hand/eye coordination.

When powering up the Xbox, the user is greeted with futuristic green
menus. The first order of business is to set the language that you want
the menus to appear in. English, French, Spanish, German and Italian
are all available on the U.S. release of the Xbox. After choosing the
language setting, the next step is setting the machine’s internal clock
and other assorted options. In this menu area, you can set the Xbox to
automatically turn itself off if left unattended for over six hours.
This may not seem like a big deal, but there have been reports of some
Xbox units overheating, so this feature makes sense.

The Xbox is not only a video game machine, but also a decent CD and DVD
player. Not only can you play CDs, but you can copy tracks on to the
internal hard drive (assuming the CD is not copy-protected), rearrange
the tracks, even rename them if you want by using the virtual onscreen
keyboard. You can then play the tracks back, even if you don’t have the
original CD. You can’t, however, put your newly-ordered playlist back
onto a CD, because the Xbox does not have a CD burner. It is only able
to read the disc and write the data to the internal hard drive. I can't
imagine that this feature would ever get much use, but it’s cool to
know it’s there and I had no trouble copying audio tracks to the Xbox’s
internal hard drive.

Even
though the Xbox is a DVD player, you can’t just pop in a DVD and make
it play without buying an extra piece of equipment. Microsoft makes a
$35 "Xbox DVD Movie Playback Kit" that is basically a DVD remote, with
an infrared sensor that plugs into any one of the four controller slots
on the front of the console. With Sony’s Playstation 2 DVD player, you
can at least use the regular game controller to operate it, so
realistically this makes the Xbox’s retail price more like $335 if you
really want to fairly compare it to the PS2. That said, the Xbox’s DVD
player looks about like any $200 to $300 Japanese DVD player I’ve seen.
I haven’t had a chance to see it with the S-Video or Composite
connection, but you can assume these connections will look even better
on most systems.

The Xbox’s DVD remote and the
functionality of the DVD player are far superior to that of the PS2.
The controls and execution of commands using the PS2 remote are clunky
and frustrating. The Xbox remote looks suspiciously like a year-2000
RCA DVD player remote, with green and white buttons instead of red and
blue, but it works well and is very intuitive. The remote sensor sits
happily in the fourth controller slot and doesn’t have to be removed
every time you want to play a two-player game, as it does on the PS2.

Playing Games On The Xbox
Now, let’s get to the fun part: playing the games. The initial batch of
titles that was released for the Xbox was fairly small and there are
currently only around 40 titles on the market, but they sure have
started out with some great ones. Sports games tend to be my personal
favorite genre and I’ve already built up a nice collection of games for
the Xbox.

I’ve
played just about every football game there is for the Playstation 2
and Sega Dreamcast, so I was very interested to see how well the Xbox
football games measured up. Currently the two most popular football
releases available for the Xbox are EA Sports’ Madden 2002 and
Microsoft’s NFL Fever 2002. Sports game developers have made a smart
move by naming their games with the year in them to make you feel
obligated to go out and get the new releases as they come out annually.
No one would be caught dead playing Madden 2001 in 2002. Each year,
they add subtle bells and whistles to the games and update the player
rosters and schedules to keep up with the real leagues. To compare
apples to apples, I played a game of Madden 2002 on my PS2, using the
RCA audio/video inputs, and then played the Xbox version. The first
obvious difference between the two systems is the loading time when the
game begins. With the higher clock speed, the Xbox loads quicker. I’m
eagerly awaiting the 2002 Xbox version of my absolute favorite boxing
game, Knockout Kings (EA Sports). The 2001 version for PS2 is one of
the most addictive button mashers I’ve ever played, but the long waits
between rounds are the game's only downside. I do hope that the power
of the Xbox will make this already amazing game that much more engaging.

With video football games, one of the visually weakest parts for me has
always been the grid lines on the field. As the "camera" moves around
the stadium, these white lines on virtually every game system are
slightly jagged and tend to flicker. Although still not perfect, the
Xbox is better at reproducing the yardage lines than any other system
on the market. The actual game play is very similar between the Xbox
and PS2 version of Madden Football, but head to head, the Xbox version
edges out the PS2 with its smoother graphics and faster load times.

Hockey
is a different matter, not because of the visuals, but because of the
sound. EA Sports NHL hockey games have progressively gotten better over
the years, and now that they have taken advantage of the DTS outputs on
the PS2, they have brought bone-crunching checks into the boards to new
sonic highs in video game hockey. (If you have a PS2 and want to take
advantage of the DTS sound, you’ll have to make sure your system is set
to output DTS in the internal menu.) The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound on the
Xbox version of NHL 2002 seems a little on the tame side after rocking
the DTS PS2 version for a few games.

Nintendo
began a trend in video games several years ago with a thing called the
"rumble pack," a small device you could place in their N64 controller
that would vibrate according to the action on the screen. Microsoft’s
larger than average controllers have a built-in vibration mechanism
that has a much wider range of vibration than its predecessors did. In
football, the vibrations range from big hits that shake the controller
pretty good, to minute vibrations when a running back stiff-arms a
safety as he runs upfield. The game that takes the cake when it comes
to effective use of the vibration feature is the futuristic space alien
first person shooter game Halo. As your character walks through dark
dank tunnels of an alien spacecraft, the controller emits a low buzz
each time the ship is struck by enemy fire, then vibrates intensely
when aliens blast through doors and hallways. It’s the most effective
use of a technology that I found to be ineffective in most games in the
past. It might also be interesting to place a set of Clark Synthesis
Tactile Transducers under the couch to make your body shake along with
the vibrating controller.

Some
games for the Xbox have a logo on them stating "Only on Xbox." One of
these is the "Star Wars" game Obi Wan, based on "Star Wars: Episode 1
-- The Phantom Menace," featuring the voices of Ewan McGregor and Liam
Neeson. Obi Wan does double duty as both a one-on-one fighting game and
an adventure game with missions that young Obi Wan Kenobi must
complete, armed only with a lightsaber, the Force and occasional help
from a computer controlled Jedi Knight Padewan. The head to head
lightsaber battles with a friend are a little difficult because of the
split screen camera, but they take standard fighting games to another
level with the amazing jumps, flips and tumbles that the Jedi Knights
can perform. Despite not having the most intense graphics, Obi-Wan is
the only game for the Xbox that has given the processor any kind of
trouble. When the screen fills up with enemies, bullets and other
assorted objects, the action on screen will occasionally slow down and
slightly glitch. The polygon-based graphics require an extremely
powerful processor and there are times when even the Xbox just can’t
keep up with the action on screen. Aside from this slight glitch in the
game (it's only happened a handful of times), Obi-Wan is a must-have
for "Star Wars" fans as you live out your fantasy of blocking bullets
with your lightsaber and pushing enemies off large cliffs using the
Force.

The Downside
The fact that the
Xbox does not have DTS outputs is the only real disappointment for me.
To hear the sound of games like NHL 2002 and SSX Tricky (both from EA
Sports) in DTS is so engaging that it’s a bummer that Microsoft
couldn’t have found a cost-effective way of making the Xbox DTS
compatible. Reports are that Microsoft loses about $100 on each Xbox
sold, based on advertising and production costs, and won’t start making
money on the system until the end of 2003. To cram more features into
the Xbox would have likely driven up the cost up too high for the
competitive video game market.

Aside from my glitching problem with Obi-Wan, I don’t have a negative
thing to say about the game performance of the Xbox. The games all look
beautiful. The box itself, the instructions and the Xbox website are
all top-notch and make owning an Xbox an enjoyable experience. The
amount of titles that are available right now is a little on the low
side, but since Xbox games run on DirectX 8 API, the same set of
functions that game developers use to create PC games, games for the
Xbox will soon be pouring out a dizzying rate. It’s just hard to sit
and wait while high-profile titles like Spider-Man are not available.

Conclusion
Ultimately, there are only two choices, the Xbox and the PS2, for the
home theater junkie who wants to add a game console to his or her
system. I like them both, but the reality is that, since I bought my
Xbox, the PS2 has gathered its fair share of dust in the corner of the
room. It’s just more fun to go shopping for Xbox games than for the
PS2, knowing how good they are going to look in this system. If you’ve
already got a stack of Playstation 1 games, keep the good ones, sell
the lame ones and your system and pick up a PS2, since it is
backwards-compatible. If you have any money left over, put it towards
an Xbox, like I did. If you are starting from scratch or only have a
Sega Dreamcast or an older system, Xbox is the way to go. It’s just a
better machine overall, with a small but very solid lineup of games
that is poised to get much bigger very soon. The PS2 will most likely
drop in price before the Xbox does -- I wouldn’t be surprised to see it
at $249.99 by this Christmas -- but the Xbox is so new that you
shouldn’t wait for the price to fall before picking one up. You won’t
get a DTS DVD player as you would with the PS2, but it’s not going to
replace your home DVD player anyway. Perhaps you could skip the Xbox
DVD player kit and get the Xbox. It’s $299 well spent.